The Manager-Less Workplace

Um…ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY!

And so, in my research, I came across this article which totally blew my mind. How…in the world…had I not ever heard of this before. Like EVER!!??

Innovation Democracy: W.L. Gore’s Original Management Model

If you didn’t take the time to click the link…do it. I promise it will be worth not just your time, it will be worth its weight in gold toward any purpose you may be aspiring to. What you will read within these lines are things we have all experienced.

• Some of us to the greatest of depths that we have not yet recovered.
• Some of us to the depths that have forced us into armour.
• Some of us to the heights to stand up and make a stand for something different, better, right.

What I believe is at the foundation of executing every single part of this workplace structure is emotional intelligence. It would be impossible for anyone with low EQ to execute on the fundamental beliefs and guiding principles of a manager-less workplace.

(Article excerpt)

• Fundamental beliefs: Belief in the individual to do what’s right for the company; our organization harnesses the fast decision-making, diverse perspectives, and collaboration of small teams; “we’re all in the same boat,” sharing risks and rewards and committed to what’s best for the company and its long term success; we take a long-term view, basing our investment decisions on the long-term payoff and not sacrificing our values for short-term gain.

Without a high level of self-perception, self-expression, and stress-management, an individual would not possess the skills to execute on self-belief, choosing the greater good over the individual, inclusion, and collaboration, risking personal safety to innovate.

• Guiding principles: freedom – for associates to achieve their own goals best by directing their efforts to the success of the corporation, to take action, to come up with ideas, to make mistakes as part of the creative process, to encourage each other to grow; fairness – we each sincerely try to be fair with each other, our suppliers, our customers and anyone else with whom we do business; commitment – we each make our own commitments and keep them; waterline – everyone at Gore consults with other associates before taking actions that might be “below the waterline,” causing serious damage to the company

Without a high level of interpersonal relationships and decision making, an individual would not be able to take action with insight and solve problems creatively, to share risk and decide the best course of action while remaining flexible to constant change, adapt priorities based on what is and isn’t impactful in the moment to the overall goal.

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Here’s the mission, here’s the BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL.

An onboarding program that develops individuals to be able to flourish in a manager-less organization. An organization that is self-orienting, self-organizing, focused on the collective over the one, diplomatic in its decision making, innovative in its problem solving, freely sharing of information-praise-recognition, freely admits to errors and failures seeing them as opportunities to grow and learn and risk bigger next time, a human’s first environment that places people before anything else.

 

Onboarding that focuses entirely on the individuals’ emotional intelligence growth. Developing their capacity to reach their optimum EQ so that they can leverage the crap out of their IQ. Developing each person to be the master leader of themselves in the most emotionally intelligent way; reaching the peak of their overall sense of well-being, their emotional functioning, their social functioning, and their performance.

Whoa. I just blew my own mind.

This is my mission to bring to the masses.